Henri Nouwen

Finding God in All Things: 10 Books for 2018

Steve · January 15, 2018 · 5 Comments

From time to time, as both a writer and a spiritual director, I get asked for book recommendations. So on this cold and snowy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday in the U.S., I stayed inside and scoured my shelves for ten books I would highly recommend, books that are both well-read and well-loved, books that have pointed me in different ways to the movement of God in my life, inspired me by their beauty and story, or have somehow appeared in my life just when I needed them most.

The Creative Spirit: Conversation and Storytelling

Steve · August 21, 2017 · 3 Comments

IMG_1153 - Version 2 — Opening the door to conversation and storytelling. SJG photo.

If you read my blog regularly, you’ll certainly see a few repeating themes, among them the importance of living in awareness and gratitude of God and the critical nature of silent, contemplative prayer to do that. But there’s more, of course. As much as we need our times of silence, we need times of conversation and storytelling with friends new and old.

I received an email from L’Arche St. Louis this morning that helped drive this idea home for me, for the email contained this quote from Henri Nouwen, who lived in a L’Arche community for many years:

“Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.”

Sitting at the Feet of Elders

Steve · March 1, 2015 · 11 Comments

LoveYou — Memorial Stone in New Orleans cemetery. SJG photo.

About a month ago at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church at Saint Louis University, I had the opportunity to attend an event for the L’Arche community in St. Louis featuring Sue Mosteller, CSJ, a sister of St. Joseph for 65 years and a long-time friend, colleague and literary executrix of Henri Nouwen. Nouwen, who died in 1996, was one of the great spiritual writers of the 20th century and one of my own personal inspirations and heroes, although I never had the opportunity to meet him.

So when I had the opportunity to hear Sue Mosteller, who has done so much to preserve and continue to publish Nouwen’s work, I knew this might be as close as I ever might get to Nouwen. And I was not disappointed. Sitting on a folding chair with a few hundred others, I was reminded of something I recently read (wish I could remember where!), that “sitting at the feet of wise elders is like listening to the Holy Spirit.”

Although I took notes while I was there, I wasn’t sure I would ever do anything with them. But as I reviewed those notes yesterday, I realized the depth of the wisdom and knew I needed to share it. So with apologies to Sue if I get anything a little wrong from faulty note taking, here are a few things I learned sitting before this particular elder, this person willing to allow the Spirit to work through her as she told us about listening for the “inner voice of love.” I didn’t put quote marks around everything below because I wasn’t sure of my accuracy, but be assured that the thoughts and ideas are hers, not mine…

She began by telling a story of accompanying Nouwen to a museum, where he placed himself before a Van Gogh painting. She waited with him…5 minutes…10 minutes…15 minutes until finally she asked him, “What are you doing?”

His nonchalant reply: “I’m walking around in the south of France, aren’t you?” He had stepped into the painting, was appreciating it. And the lesson: We cannot be spectators when it comes to our faith.

220px-Sue_Mosteller — Sue Mosteller, from Wikipedia.

So where is this “inner voice of love?” First of all, she urged us to be careful about those words, for there is no “voice.” The inner voice of love, the voice of God, comes to us through others, and often from the most unlikely of teachers. John the Baptist, one unlikely teacher [just think about what he must have looked and smelled like!] came to point to the light of the world. “Not me, it’s him,” he said. “There is the lamb of God.” We need John the Baptists who will point us in the right direction. We hear that voice, but it is Jesus we follow and encounter, and it is with Jesus that we abide. In that encounter we are transformed. In that encounter we discover the voice of love.

When God wanted to save us he didn’t send a book; he sent a person, Jesus. And this Jesus is delicate and respectful. He doesn’t begin by saying, “repent and be saved.” He says, gently, “What are you looking for? Can you give me a drink? Would you like to be healed?” This is the voice of love. The voice of love asks questions of the other.

Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I love you.” We have to claim this. We have to say, “yes.” We are beloved, with all of our beauty and darkness. The earth has seen 34.5 billion years of evolution and…then…there was the perfect time for you and me to be born. So that we could be here right now, doing what we are doing. Jesus came to “pitch his tent among us.”

We need to stay close to the wise voices that are guiding us, that are telling us that we are loved. For the call of love is to become like Jesus. Our call is to become what we are — mothers and fathers of whatever kind — and take responsibility to show and guide others to the realization that they are beloved.

Jesus was vulnerable to others — he kneels and washes their feet. So we need to ask: What is my role, my primary name? Do we give people a moment of heaven in the midst of their hell? To do so, we must be aware of what is happening around us.

Sue ended by telling the story of a prostitute in Paris, depressed and suicidal, who stopped by a church to pray one last time before going off to kill herself. A minister saw her there and sat beside her while she wept.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “I’m on my way to die. There is no redemption for me and I hate men.”

“Could I say one thing?” the minister asked. “I hear you and I know you are suffering. But do you know that you are a virgin?”

She scoffed.

“There is a secret place in your heart, a hidden, privileged chapel, a place to which only you and God have access. In that place, you are a virgin.”

She wept more.

Can we believe there is such a place for all of us? A place where God dwells and waits for our return? A place where God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love?” We need to claim this truth. We are beloved. We are all broken and waiting to be transformed.

Ask yourself in silence: Do I believe I am beloved, that there is a place where God and I can meet, a place where God awaits my return, no matter what I’ve done?

One more question: Leave a comment and tell me about a time you sat at the feet of an elder and felt the pull of the Holy Spirit. Who was it and what did you learn?

Today’s Word: Enough

Steve · June 29, 2014 · 5 Comments

We seem to live in a world of “never enough.” That’s certainly what television, movies and advertising tell us. No matter how much we have, a little (or a lot) more would be better. We are told over and over (whether we think we’re listening or not): “You will never be truly fulfilled and happy until you get that one job, that one car, that one house. Then you’ll be happy and have all you need.”

Except it’s all a lie created to make us want even more. There’s no way out of that cycle of greed and “not enough” if we stay inside it. Those who create it make sure of that. If we’re not careful, if we don’t learn to find our “enough” in something that lasts, there will always be something knocking on the door of our hearts saying, “more, more, better, better.”

But we do, in fact, have access to enough. Henri Nouwen wrote that he often prayed a prayer of St. Teresa of Avila: “Solo Dios bastia.” (“God alone is enough.”) Praying these words slowly and out loud helped him enter into God’s presence, he wrote, “where there is peace and certainty that God is always with me and loves me.” (Nouwen, Discernment, p. 27). The whole text of Teresa’s prayer is:

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
Those who cling to God
will lack nothing.
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
God alone is enough.

Or, if you like your poetry a little more modern, how about these words from contemporary worship songwriter Chris Tomlin?

All of you is more than enough for all of me.
For every thirst and every need.
You satisfy me with your love.
And all I have in you is more than enough.

This is the call and challenge of the Christian life, to find in God — Father, Son and Spirit — all that we need, our daily bread and cup of sustenance. For our thirst and hunger for the “more” of this world can only truly be filled by the One who transcends all time, the One who brought all into being and continues to move and work among us.

Ask yourself in silence: What “enough” do I need to let go of so I can cling more firmly to the “enough” that God offers freely and completely?

Today’s Word: Signs

Steve · August 11, 2013 · 4 Comments

Signs, whether informational or directional, are really just stand-ins — symbols — for real things. The street sign is not the street. The stop sign is not the law. The map is not the journey. And yet, we need these signs to help us get around, understand where we are and where we want to go, and keep us safe. We’d be pretty lost and confused in a world without signs.

Henri Nouwen once wrote: “We, as followers of Jesus, are sent into this world to be visible signs of God’s unconditional love. Thus we are not first of all judged by what we say but by what we live.” So like it or not, aware or not, we are all walking signs. We are symbols that either proclaim the unconditional love of God or tell the world that we’re all on our own and there’s no hope for joy, life or anything beyond our small little lives. Either way, we’re signs. Spiritual sandwich boards. So what are we saying and where do we point?

Ask yourself in silence: What signals am I sending out to the world? Do my actions and my words point to God and invite others to a life of faith or do they leave others wondering what it is I stand for?